Vast sections of Austin are "fugly" let's not kid ourselves (Houston: for sale, apartment complexes)

[sojourner77]

Originally Posted by Novacek

You can't?

https://www.google.com/maps/@30.3065...7i13312!8i6656

That is about the extent of the "nice" part of N. Lamar. Everything north of Koenig is pretty bleak.

[Novacek]

Originally Posted by cBach

We were talking north of Koenig.

Then to repeat, you're talking totally different distances.

No part of S Lamar stretches further than 3.5 miles from the edge of downtown).

Lamar/Koenig is 4 miles from downtown.


If you want to compare South Austin to Lamar north of Koenig, why don't you compare against South Congress near Stassney?

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/30.3...56!4m2!4m1!3e0

[sojourner77]

Originally Posted by Novacek

If you want to compare South Austin to Lamar north of Koenig, why don't you compare against South Congress near Stassney?

That entire stretch of road is currently being demolished and gentrified. St. Elmo Market is currently under construction a few blocks away.

Here are some images of the residential construction along South Congress: https://www.google.com/search?q=st.+...congress+78745


There are developments also going up between Stassney and St. Elmo that look nice. Some condos and mixed use down near William Cannon, and some townhomes by Meritage near Dittmar. The only real issue is the junkyards between Slaughter and Dittmar, but I've noticed at least one huge parcel has been cleared out and is on the market for development.

[Novacek]

Originally Posted by sojourner77

That entire stretch of road is currently being "flipped" and gentrified. St. Elmo Market is currently under construction a few blocks away:

it's not "a few blocks", it's a mile up the road. at you know, St. Elmo road.

(you know, about as far as my previous link, which you said was too far south, is from Koenig).

[Novacek]

Originally Posted by sojourner77

Here are some images of the residential construction along South Congress: https://www.google.com/search?q=st.+...congress+78745

Should I post pictures of Midtown Commons and crestview station now?

https://www.google.com/search?q=st.+...es+Lamar+78757

[sojourner77]

Novacek - I'm not doing the "tit-for-tat" with you today and dragging it out 5 pages. Sorry to disappoint you - maybe cBach would like to.

[Aquitaine]

But that's the thing, many who are in the lower and middle classes still remain in Austin and haven't gone anywhere. Despite what some would like to believe. Not all areas within the city limits are filled with high wage earners. Case in point, go down 183. Or that area by Reagan High. Northeast. Parts of Metric. Rundberg.

Of course. You know that and I know that. The data tell a lot of stories. Very few of them seem at all unique to Austin. Any urban property heat map will be red in the center as population booms and people who could afford it before can't afford it later. I was just in Tokyo where the average train commute is over an hour because of this problem. Of course they don't call it segregation there because it's one of the least diverse countries around to begin with.

At any rate I'm not making the argument that it is or isn't segregation because this thread is not about that. I'm merely observing that calling it that is making an argument and not an objective observation. The objective observation is that flight to the suburbs has a correlation with a decline in school district quality and an inverse correlation with property values.

[cBach]

Originally Posted by sojourner77

Novacek - I'm not doing the "tit-for-tat" with you today and dragging it out 5 pages. Sorry to disappoint you - maybe cBach would like to.

Nah, it's chillax time.

[homeinatx]

Originally Posted by cBach

Well, yes there are interesting shops/restaurants and they "make do" with the crappy architecture. You have to have lived in an older city like New Orleans to understand what I mean. Even the less interesting neighborhoods, when they came time to be gentrified, were architectural gems. I'm thinking Bywater and Midcity. I think the problem was that for many years Austin was kind of a poorer city and its architecture reflects that.

I think the only solution is to allow highrises all the way to 183, forming a block from MoPac to I-35. It's the only way.

Although I despise the traffic, Steiner Ranch is gorgeous. Nothing compares in the rest of Austin, to be honest.

I love how this thread has also become a north vs. south Austin thread, a homeless people in Austin thread, an economic segregation thread. You pushed nearly every button.

I would 100% agree that Austin is for the most part an architecturally ugly city. I wish Austin had the architectural bones of New Orleans. I wish Austin had the architectural bones of Cleveland.

While I think it is great that you love where you live, I 100% disagree that Steiner Ranch is gorgeous. While aesthetics are somewhat subjective, they are also conventional in the strict sense of that word. SR is very far from the prettiest single family home neighborhood in Austin either topographically or architecturally. The waterfront neighborhoods on both sides of Lake Austin and the waterfront neighborhoods on Town Lake north of Enfield on the east side of the river and west of Mopac on the west are prettier by almost any measure - they are as hilly as SR, have much better tree cover, much better water views, much greater architectural variety and craft values, much bigger lots. They are also much much more expensive for very obvious reasons. There is not a street in Steiner Ranch that can hold a candle to Mount Bonnell Drive from 35th street to 2222 or Scenic from Enfield to 35th, or parts of Redbud trail across the lake. Even the less desirable parts of Westlake, Cuernavaca and Lost Creek are objectively prettier than Steiner Ranch, and then there are Austin old money neighborhoods like Pemberton which have city views instead of water ones. Drive Windsor Road, the early twentieth century mansions on the crest of that hill make every house in SR look distinctly cheap and nasty. Even on the unfairly maligned East Side, there are prettier neighborhoods. Wilshire Woods - a pocket neighborhood with historic designation between 38 and a half and Airport is full of mid century architect designed real limestone bungalows with towering 200 year old post oaks, some of the houses on over half an acre lots. Swede Hill is tiny but there are magnificent Victorian mansions. Hyde park is spotty and flat, but in terms of trees and architecture blows SR out of the water. Travis Heights south of the river. Judges Hill . . .I could go on, but there are easily a dozen neighborhoods in central Austin that even by your own suspect criteria are much prettier than Steiner, and the prices reflect that. Your desire to obliterate everything from UT to 183 between Mopac and 35 is beyond lunatic. You would rob Austin of the little historically distinguished architecture it has, a huge chunk of its mature tree overage. Sure the commercial thoroughfares are not pretty, but they are home to quite a bit of interesting stuff, and some of the neighborhoods between them are, unlike SR, actually gorgeous.

There are also many comparable neighborhoods to SR: While the hills in Steiner are nice, the houses are almost identical to the housing stock in large swathes of Circle C, and the nicer parts of Pflugerville and Round Rock. Makes sense as they were built on the same plans at the same time by the same builders. Parts of Lakeway, Bee Cave, Falconhead west, Jester Estates also have hills and close to identical housing stock?? Looks very comparable ??

I am fine with a little homerism, but blind homerism is another thing entirely.

[ScoPro]

Originally Posted by CarnivalGal

Like I said, SF is a much older and denser city, so I get where they can't bury a ton of cables. Austin also has things out of it's control, which I already said. Doesn't explain why Austin feels the need to string wires across intersections to hang stoplights.

I'm not saying other cities don't have wires too, just that Austin seems to have more than most.

I will go further and say, wires or not SF is a much more aesthetically pleasing city than Austin. I don't even think it's a close call on that.

Of course the physical setting is outstanding, but it's pecans to grapes to make that comparison.


Austin has its pluses & minuses like any other city. One minus is the massive growth over the past 50 years that the inadequate city councils have been unwilling to keep up with. Austin has septupled in size since 1950, while San Francisco already had almost all its growth 66 years ago and has been more or less stagnant until very recently. It only stands to reason that the Bay City had already matured by the time Austin was poised for its huge leap.
Another advantage SF has had is being a world class city for well over a century, while Austin has been more of a raw, podunk backwater college town until the '60s.


This town will get there eventually, but it is by no means as bad as the majority of cities I've visited. Texas does lots of things pretty well and certainly can do ugly.


I liked my time In San Francisco in the 1950s, especially looking at the vista from the grounds of the Presidio. But I equally enjoy the view from Mount Bonnell.